Research Facilities:

Overview:

The Department has extensive laboratory facilities supporting a wide range of instructional
and research activities. Equipment includes two heating-freezing microscopes with
video recording capabilities for fluid inclusion studies; a 30'x2'x1.5' recirculating
flume for experiments in sediment transport; an experimental petrology laboratory
with 15 cold-seal vessels, 2 Ar-media presses, 2 one-atmosphere gas-mixing furnaces,
and a piston cylinder furnace; a paleomagnetics laboratory with a slow speed spinner
magnetometer and a.f. demagnetizing equipment; a seismic laboratory with a local seismic
station and computer links to seismographs around the world; two scanning electron
microscopes; and a cathodoluminescence microscope.

During the last 5 years we have obtained new state-of-the-art equipment to improve
our research facilities, including: (1) a DCP- atomic emission spectrometer for whole-rock
and mineral-separate analyses: (2) a JEOL-8900 'Super Probe' for our electron microbeam
facility; (3) a Nikon microscope-photography set up for photomicrographs and videotapes;
(4) three classroom monitors for real-time Macintosh, IBM, and Microscope-TV display;
(5) a 24-channel high-resolution shallow seismic reflection system; (6) an X-ray diffractometer
with computer automation and pattern searching software; and (7) a network of Sun
workstations for our Seismic laboratory.

Ongoing research projects involving faculty, staff, and graduate students include
field studies in Australia, California, the Canadian Rockies, the Caribbean, Colombia,
East Greenland, Idaho, India, Iowa, Mexico, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico,
New York, New Zealand, at sea with the Ocean Drilling Program, Russia, Pakistan, Taiwan,
Tibet, Utah, and Venezuela.